Creating Child Theme and Modifying Twenty Eleven

Hi Mark,

I hope I can help you out with some step-by-step instructions.

Once we finish these steps you will have a functioning child theme based on the TwentyEleven parent theme with the comments form removed and the page title no longer showing.

You will need FTP access to your hosting account if you have already set up a website. If you do not know how to FTP into your account you will need to contact your hosting provider for instructions.

1. On your computer, create a folder called mytheme-mark.
2. Create a CSS stylesheet using the text editor of your choice. Not sure, two options listed below

• If you use Windows: open Notepad.
• If you use a Mac: open TextEdit and go to ‘Format’ in the menu bar. Click “Make Plain Text”.

• Copy this code and paste it into the text editor.

/*
Theme Name:     Mark's Theme
Theme URI:
Description:    Mark's Child Theme of Twenty Eleven
Author:         Mark
Author URI:
Template:       twentyeleven
Version:        1.0
*/

@import url("../twentyeleven/style.css");

• Save the file into the folder you created earlier (mytheme-mark) as style.css
• In your text editor create a new file
• Copy this code and paste it into the text editor.

<article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>
	<header class="entry-header">
		<!-- <h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h1> -->
	</header><!-- .entry-header -->
	<div class="entry-content">
		<?php the_content(); ?>
		<?php wp_link_pages( array( 'before' => '<div class="page-link"><span>' . __( 'Pages:', 'twentyeleven' ) . '</span>', 'after' => '</div>' ) ); ?>
	</div><!-- .entry-content -->
	<footer class="entry-meta">
		<?php edit_post_link( __( 'Edit', 'twentyeleven' ), '<span class="edit-link">', '</span>' ); ?>
	</footer><!-- .entry-meta -->
</article><!-- #post-<?php the_ID(); ?> -->

• Save the file into the folder you created earlier (mytheme-mark) as content-page.php
• Upload the mytheme-mark folder using FTP into the wp-content/themes folder
• Log in to your site and go to the admin dashboard.
• Go to Appearance->Themes
• You will see the current theme listed first with any additional themes listed below. You should see the theme named Mark’s Theme. Below that is a link that says “Activate”. Click that link. Your theme will now show as the Current Theme
• In the admin dashboard go to Settings->Discussion
• Under Default Article Settings you will see a checkbox with text to the right that says “Allow People to post comments…”. Uncheck this box.
• In the admin dashboard go to Posts->All Posts
• Hover your mouse over the title of a post. Click the “Quick Edit” link that appears below.
• Look to the far right and you will see a check box with text that says “Allow Comments”. Make sure this box is unchecked. Do this for all your posts.
• Visit your site. You should now see that your pages have no titles and all your posts no longer have the “Leave a Reply” form.

Thank you! This was very clear and helpful.

If you could give an summary of what that code is doing then I’d be grateful. I’m trying to grok it, but I’m not there yet with PHP.

Also, this doesn’t seem to affect the “Home” page that comes with Twenty Eleven. I presume there is another PHP file one needs to create to override this? Any ideas?

regards

gregg